STORIES

The Alum Building a Brand New City in Panama

Colombian billionaire Jaime Gilinski (MBA 1980) is the man behind what Forbes calls “the most audacious real estate project in the world”: the redevelopment of Howard Air Force Base along the Panama Canal.

After the United States left in 1999, Gilinski—a successful banker with no real estate experience—bought the base and began building a new city. “It was a white canvas to develop from the beginning,” Gilinski told Forbes.

Today, nearly 1,000 buildings stand in Panama Pacifico—a property five times the size of Central Park, now estimated to be worth $3.6 billion—and Gilinski has big plans for the 85 percent of the land still undeveloped.